Chapter 10 – The Confession in the Garden

The late afternoon sun cast long, golden shadows across the lawn as we approached Rosa’s cottage.

The smell of blooming late-season roses filled the air.

Rosa was on her knees in the dirt, wearing gardening gloves, carefully pruning a large bush.

She smiled brightly when she saw us coming.

“Nicky! Sophie! You’re just in time for tea.”

Nico didn’t smile back.

He walked up to the edge of the garden and held out the old Polaroid photograph.

“Rosa,” Nico said gently, but firmly. “Who is the woman in this picture?”

Rosa stopped pruning.

She slowly stood up, wiping the dirt from her knees.

She looked at the photograph in Nico’s hand.

All the color drained from her face.

“Where did you find this?” she whispered.

“In a cedar box my mother hid in the attic,” Nico answered. “Who is she, Rosa? My mother wrote ‘My sister’ on the back.”

Rosa took off her gardening gloves. Her hands were trembling.

She looked at Nico. Then she looked at the ground.

“She wasn’t your mother’s biological sister, Nicky,” Rosa said quietly. “She was her foster sister. Her name was Elena.”

Nico frowned. “I never knew my mother was in foster care.”

“She was, for three years, before her parents took her back,” Rosa explained. “She and Elena were inseparable. They promised to always look out for each other.”

Rosa reached inside the collar of her blouse and pulled out the oval silver locket.

The exact same locket from the photograph.

“Elena was my daughter,” Rosa said, tears filling her eyes.

Nico and I stood in stunned silence.

“Your daughter?” Nico breathed. “But… where is she? I’ve never met her.”

Rosa clutched the locket tightly.

“She passed away, Nicky. Twenty-nine years ago.”

She looked at the photograph in Nico’s hand, staring at the baby wrapped in the blue blanket.

“She fell in love with a man who was involved with the Moretti family. When she tried to leave him, he found her.”

Rosa sobbed, a sound of pure, ancient heartbreak.

“Your mother tried to protect her. She hid Elena at this estate. But they found her anyway. Elena died. But your mother managed to save the baby.”

Nico stepped closer, his voice barely a whisper.

“The baby in the picture?”

Rosa nodded.

“Your mother paid a good, honest man to take the baby far away. To raise her safely, away from the mob life.”

Rosa looked up.

She didn’t look at Nico.

She looked directly at me.

“A man named Thomas Bennett.”

The world stopped spinning.

The wind died down.

I couldn’t breathe.

“No,” I whispered, stumbling backward.

Rosa walked toward me, tears streaming down her face.

“I am so sorry, Sophie,” Rosa cried, reaching out for me. “Thomas is a wonderful man. He adopted you. He loved you. But I am your grandmother.”

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